Recently, data recording devices using an optical disk such as DVD-RAMs, etc., have been widely used. The standards for the optical disks are divided into a rewritable type and a write-once type, wherein the rewritable type of optical disks are the disks such as DVD-RAMs on which data can be overwritten, and the write-once type of optical disks are the disks such as DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs on which data cannot be deleted once they are recorded.
Although users can record and delete data repeatedly on the rewritable type of recording media, the rewritable type of recording media have low compatibility with various types of DVD players. On the other hand, although the users can record data just once on the write-once type of recording media such as the DVD-R and the DVD+R, the write-once type of recording media have high compatibility with various types of DVD players. The users cannot record data on the write-once type of recording media later by executing a recording termination process so called a finalization process. However, the write-once type can be played in wide-spread DVD players (including recordable DVD players). On this account, most DVD recording and playing devices record data based on the DVD-R standard which has the highest compatibility.
Conventionally, to finalize a disk, 1) the user is required to determine whether or not to perform the finalization process, or 2) the finalization process is performed automatically after data is recorded (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 2002-324321).
However, these conventional arts have problems that the concept of the finalization is difficult to understand and the user cannot play the disk on a different type of a DVD player without the finalization process. Further, a device that finalizes a disk automatically after data have been recorded has a problem that the device finalizes the disk with plentiful recordable amount left which cannot be used to record additional data.